The National tribune. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1877-1917, 1887-12-29
OUR RURAL TOPICS,
Some Practical Suggestions Cor Our
Agricultural Readers
ASHES AMP MANURE.

ASHES AND MANURE.
During the Winter is the best time to secure
supply of ashes and manure, and it should
be an item to look after and see that ali posi-
BILE is gathered up and stored away, to be APP
piled to the land. Ashes should not be mixed
or applied with any other kind of manure.
Some use ashes to sprinkle under the roosts in
the poultry house, but this is not q good plan.
About the only mixture of manure and ashes
that can be considered as best is to take the
coal ashes keeping them in some out-of-th
way place, and pouring the chamber slops over
them. In this way their manurial value is
considerably increased.
Coal ashes are very valuable for loosening up
q stiff SOIL or for applying around small-fruit
or apple and pear trees, or even the peach.
Wood ashes make very valuable fertilizer to
use either in the garden, the truck patch or the
orchard They can be used around fruit trees
of any kind with profit. They are valuable to
apply in the hill or even scattered broadcast
and worked thoroughly into the soil for pota-
toes. They can be used to a great advantage
with almost any kind of a crop in the garden,
and especially so in the onion bed, using as
top dressing, applying after the soil is thor
onghly prepared, either before or after the seed
is planted. Giving the necessary cultivation
will readily work them into the soil.
Poultry manure is very valuable for hill or
drill manuring. If intended to be used for
sorbent. If it is cleaned up-and the poultry
house should certainly be cleaned up every few
days-and stored in dry place until it is need
ed, it is one of the very best fertilizers we can
secure, and care should be taken to see that it
is not allowed TO go to waste.
Both the wood ashes and the poultry manure
are in themselves valuable fertilizers, but they
should not be mixed together, or portion of
their most valuable properties will be lost. If
not convenient to store and use as wanted in
the Spring, the next best plan is to scatter
broadcast, having the soil plowed or spaded and
then working well into the surface.-Farm,
Field and St0ckmGn.
SAVE THE POTATOES
One of our correspondents asks about feeding
small potatoes to the hogs. Cooked potatoes
are first rate for hogs il the fattening stage, we
would say, but the inquiry suggests matter
that it may be well enough to mention. Pota-
toes are scarce, and of course will be scarcer.
By the time Spring comes potatoes will be po-
tatoes, and great many small potatoes will be
needed for planting. 1t is not worth while to
discuss the question of the superiority of large
potatoes over small ones for seed. If large ones
cannot be had small ones must necessarily be
used. A friend of The RardI intends to eat his
small ones and save large ones for seed. Very
well Just as one likes to that matter. But
very small potatoes are inconvenient to handle
for cooking purposes. Our purpose, however,
is accomplished when we remind the reader
that seed potatoes will be high-priced next
Spring. unless our importation Of potatoes ia
much larger than it is likely to be.-ErchGnge.
NEW 90-DAY SEED CORN.
EDITOR NATIONAL Tribune: I would like
to tell your readers about this new variety Of
white corn. plowed small patch of ground
last Spring, and narrowed it thoroughly till
there was not clod to be found. planted on
the 10th day of May. / marked it out 81 K 81
feet, and planted three grains in hill. When
up it grew very rapidly, with strong and
healthy stock. / narrowed 1t three times very
carefully, and on the 10th day Of August cut
it up. 1t was the largest corn / ever saw, the
stalks growing to 10 feet high, with two to
three large and perfect ears to stock, some
ears measuring IA inches long. 1t ia very deep
grain cob small. The originator, of Northern
Illinois, claims it has produced 100 bushels of
shelled corn per acre, which believe to be true,
if it turns out like the patch had out.--W L.
FRoss, Donnelsyille, o.
NOTES.
Whole corn is good evening meal for
poultry.
Fowls should not be killed for several
hours after feeding.
Boiled rice is found to be good food for
fattcuing chickens rapidly.
"A process has been patented for making
-four out Of sweet potatoes.
Cabbage ia relished by poultry at this sea-
son and can be fed with profit.
"A warehouse that was burned at Macon,
No., recently, had 100000 dozen eggs in it.
Stacked lime if sprinkled between potatoes
that are stored in heaps will cause them to
keep better.
The Jeneton apple cannot be found on the
market this year. The drouth has destroyed
the crop.
"A good cow Is main source of income to
farmer, but poor COW should be disposed oil
as soon as possible.
Great Britain works up an average of H.
600 bales of cotton, of 400 pounds EACH in heI
mills each week.
Poultry miss the bugs and insects at this
season, and bits of fresh meat should be given
! TO supply that deficiency.
The pork packing season has opened in
Louisville. The stock is better than the short
corn crop had led them to suspect
Small tree plantations are found in all the
| school yards in Austria and Hungary. This
might be well copied in this country.
Potatoes must be housed where they will
be kept from sprouting as much as possible, es
| peciaily If they are intended for seed.
The question is not what could be done II
we had certain other things, but what we car
do to make the most of what we have.
/ The foliage of great white oak tree al
Vernon, Ala, is half dark green, and the other
half yellow throughout the Summer.
The main thing is TO take good care of your
stock, and then there viii be no cause TO In
quire what is the best medicine for them.
lit is proved by experiment at the station
| at Uniontown, Ala, that drainage causes an in
crease of 53.4 per cent in the yield of corn.
1T is very important that the farmer should
be acquainted with his animals and know VIVA
they require and how to care for them.
=" Spanish" onions, which are really Sicil
ian and Italian onions, are largely supplantinl
the American onion from the markets of thi
country.
Ten acres have been set out with mulberr.
trees, and 10 reels are now running at tn,
newly established silkproducing station 8
Kansas
The peach buds are in the best possible
condition to stand the rigors of Winter, SC thu
the prospects for large crop next season ar
very good.
In an admonitory article the Stsckman de
clares there is no excuse or deceney in having
filthy pig sty that it should and can be a
clean and neat as the abode of any other farm
animal, and when found otherwise there mus
be something wrong with the farmer. Tn
Editor adds that he has sesn pig sty so scrupu
lousy neat and clean that person could &
into it and lie down without injury to hi
clothes or discomfort, and others that were a.
abomination to ollactories when several rod
away, let alone coming near enough to see tn
filth. This is certainly poor policy-poor 70
the hog and poor for the hog eater.
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